


Columbia Correctional Institution

by catmanu



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Abuse, Gen, High School, Serial Killers, midnight club era best era, pre-show goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-26
Updated: 2019-05-26
Packaged: 2020-03-17 14:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,271
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18967294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catmanu/pseuds/catmanu
Summary: She can never tell this to anyone, or they’ll throw her right back into the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, but in a way, he’s the first person she’s ever really trusted.





	Columbia Correctional Institution

He’s far away from Riverdale, all the way out in Wisconsin, and from everything the newspapers say he’s got no interest in women.  And he’s hurt so many, but he’ll never hurt her.

Out of all the men—and boys—she’s known, all the _people_ she’s known, that is a first.

She can never tell this to anyone, or they’ll throw her right back into the Sisters of Quiet Mercy, but in a way, he’s the first person she’s ever really trusted.

*

_Dear Jeffrey.  I hope someday you’ll write back to me. But even if you don’t, I hope you at least enjoy my letters._

_What do you think about being in prison?  I looked up Portage in the atlas in my school library.  I have to do these things at school because I don’t want to tell my parents what I’m doing.  Or my brother.  I don’t trust them.  But maybe you understand that.  Anyway, it’s pretty far north.  I hope you stay warm in the winter.  Prison seems like it’s cold.  I enjoy knitting, maybe I could send you a scarf in prison.  Do you have a favorite color?_

*

She mails the letters to the Columbia Correctional Institution on her way home from school.  “I have to do some French tutoring,” she tells Clifford.  “You shouldn’t wait for me.”  If she doesn’t make up something that bores him, he’ll wait for her.  He keeps an eye on her.  It gives her terrible goosebumps and puts a big lump in her throat.  She doesn’t know what it’s like to have no one watching her.  The other kids in Riverdale High do as they please, especially Alice _Fucking_ Smith and Hermione _Fucking_ Gomez.  (She can’t even _swear_ unless it’s in her own head.)

It makes her understand what it’s like to go crazy, really go crazy.

*

_Dear Jeffrey.  I know you and I have some big differences.  I haven’t committed the crimes that you have.  I’ve never kept someone’s head in my refrigerator.  My parents would go nuts if I did that.  They have a reputation to uphold!!!  Do you know how many times a week I have to hear them say that?  It makes me want to kill someone too._

_But even though I haven’t committed those crimes I understand what it’s like to be locked up._

_I’ve been locked up my whole life.  In the Sisters of Quiet Mercy—I wrote about that in another letter, if you remember—and now with my own family.  Maybe you felt that way too, and that’s why you did all those things._

_I think I understand.  Maybe you should get another chance.  Maybe they can get some doctors to help you.  Then you can try being free.  I think you’d be a different person.  You would have a new life._

_I hope you get this letter and tell your lawyers about my suggestion.  I’m just in high school, but I know some things._

*

She’s rented a P.O. box at the post office and that is where she goes after her pretend French tutoring.  There’s never anything in the box.  She’s not quite sure what would happen if the Riverdale Post Office got a letter from a prison.  Someone might even tell her parents.  But it’s worth a try.

*

_Dear Jeffrey.  I hope it doesn’t annoy you that I write so much.  You see, I don’t really have anyone else. The people I go to school with hate me.  I don’t really understand them.  My family hurts me.  My teachers like me because I’m a good student.  But I’m only a good student because it keeps me busy._

_I’m afraid…I’m afraid I’m going to do something bad at some point.  Something that would make you and me have more in common.  I bet you had this feeling too once, maybe when you were my age.  I don’t know if I want to do these things or not.  Maybe I don’t.  But maybe I do.  I don’t know…It’s bad not to know, right?_

_Maybe you can help me.  Do you have any advice?_

*

Every morning their breakfast is drowned in maple syrup.  The sweetness makes her feel heavy and sick.  This Tuesday morning is no different.  She has to sit next to Clifford and pretend to be grateful to be a Blossom.  Father reads the New York Times that he pays extra to have delivered all the way up here.  Mother drinks her orange juice and waits for Father to speak. 

“Well…hmmmm,” Father says, looking at the newspaper.  “It looks like justice has been served.”  He shows Mother whatever it is he’s reading.  She squints at the page and then puts on her glasses.

Clifford is pinching her thigh under the table.  “Stop, stop.  Stop!  I said _stop!_ ” she hisses, and kicks his calf.

“Penelope’s being uncouth, Mother,” Clifford snots.  “She’s such an animal.  I think you should send her back to the Sisters for some more training.”

“It makes sense.  If you leave them to their own devices, they’ll take care of each other,” Mother says to Father, ignoring Clifford for once.  There’s a bright red lipstick stain left on the orange juice glass that makes Penelope feel sick.  She would like to have a normal breakfast.  A normal family.

“What do you mean, Mother?” she asks.  “Who takes care of who?” 

“Oh, that freak, Jeffrey Dahmer.”  Father answers instead.  “It turns out he was beaten to death by another inmate yesterday.  He and this man who was prone to violent rages were left alone, and—”

Father’s words stop making sense.  Her mind stops understanding.  She feels like she’s listening from underwater.  It can’t be true, she thinks.  It _can’t_ be true.  Father must just be saying it to torture her.  But that can’t be true, either.  No one in her family knows about the letters.  She’s smart.  She’s made sure of that. 

“May I see, Father?” she asks. 

“Of course.”

“Do you really think a girl her age should—”

“It’s an important lesson to learn,” Father says.  “Nothing good happens to those who wind up in prison.”

Clifford groans and gets up from the table.  “You can walk to school on your own, Penelope, I’m not waiting for you.”

He leaves the room.  Their new maid comes in to clear the breakfast dishes.  Mother and Father get up, murmuring softly to each other.  They seem to have forgotten about her.

Her hands are shaking so much it would have been hard to turn the delicate pages of the newspaper.  Luckily the article she dreads reading is right there.  Front-page news. 

 

 

> _Mr. Dahmer…died of massive head injuries, suffered sometime between 7:50 and 8:10 A.M., when he was found in a pool of blood in a toilet area next to the prison’s gym, said Michael Sullivan, secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.  He was pronounced dead shortly after 9 A.M._
> 
> _A bloodied broomstick was found nearby, and a fellow inmate who is serving life sentence for murder, Christopher J. Scarver, 25, of Milwaukee, is the prime suspect, the authorities said._

Her head is spinning.  She feels like she is suffocating on the air in her lungs.  There’s too much in her chest.  She’ll never be able to tell anyone this, how she feels, why she feels it.  She’ll keep it a secret for the rest of her life, however long that’s even going to be.  The only person who she could have told it to is dead now.  He never even got the chance to write back.

*

There is no man she can trust.

**Author's Note:**

> I used the text of the actual NYT article on Dahmer's death, which I'm going to straight up cite MLA style here because I have too many degrees in literature:
> 
> Terry, Don. “Jeffrey Dahmer, Multiple Killer, Is Bludgeoned to Death in Prison.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 29 Nov. 1994, [www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html](www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/us/jeffrey-dahmer-multiple-killer-is-bludgeoned-to-death-in-prison.html)


End file.
